PARIS – Interventional cardiologists are as pleased to see the arrival of a robotic assistant as the workers at the Fukushima nuclear power plant meltdown site. A study published by the American Heart Association in August 2016 demonstrated a direct relation between working in a catheterization lab and developing radiation-induced cancer, cataracts and skin lesions. Wearing a lead-lined apron that weighs 25 pounds for 12-hour work shifts also increases the risks of aggravated orthopedic and muscular conditions. "I have lost several colleagues to brain cancer," Alain Cribier told Medical Device Daily. "We all have musculoskeletal...

PARIS – Interventional cardiologists are as pleased to see the arrival of a robotic assistant as the workers at the Fukushima nuclear power plant meltdown site. A study published by the American Heart Association in August 2016 demonstrated a direct relation between working in a catheterization lab and developing radiation-induced cancer, cataracts and skin lesions. Wearing a lead-lined apron that weighs 25 pounds for 12-hour work shifts also increases the risks of aggravated orthopedic and muscular conditions.

PARIS – One week before regulations governing the CE mark for medical devices formally takes the force of law, makers of cardiovascular devices have already turned their backs on Europe and are headed to the U.S. for first-to-market approvals. In reforming its law, the European Union has made the new Medical Device Regulation (MDR) so onerous, so complex and so uncertain that the formidable formalities of the U.S. FDA now seem user-friendly, according to discussions during several panel sessions at EuroPCR 2017, Europe's largest congress for interventional cardiology. "The pendulum has swung. The early feasibility...

PARIS – One week before regulations governing the CE mark for medical devices formally takes the force of law, makers of cardiovascular devices have already turned their backs on Europe and are headed to the U.S. for first-to-market approvals.

PARIS – A meta-analysis covering 4,529 patients presented at EuroPCR closed the door on a five-year argument over what diagnostic tool will be the gold standard in the catheterization lab for helping physicians decide whether or not to stent a coronary lesion. The results of the combined results from DEFINE-FLAIR and IFR-SWEDEHEART were already known to cardiologists, having been published in March in the New England Journal of Medicine and concurrently presented at the meeting of the American College of Cardiology. New at EuroPCR was the roll-out of the system for performing the assessment by...

PARIS – A meta-analysis covering 4,529 patients presented at EuroPCR closed the door on a five-year argument over what diagnostic tool will be the gold standard in the catheterization lab for helping physicians decide whether or not to stent a coronary lesion.